Former Blaine County businessman Gary Jay Goldberg has been sentenced to 21 days in jail after admitting to a second probation violation in a four-year-old art theft case.
In 2006, Goldberg admitted to possession of a bronze elk sculpture, valued at $7,500, that had been stolen in 2005 from Kneeland Gallery in Ketchum. He received a withheld judgment.
Goldberg, a 52-year-old municipal bonds trader who now lives in Sandpoint, will be allowed to serve his sentence at the Bonner County Jail starting Sept. 21. According to court records, Goldberg will be allowed work release while incarcerated if that's approved by the Bonner County Sheriff's Office.
He was sentenced for the probation violation Friday in Blaine County 5th District Court by Judge Robert J. Elgee. His admission to probation violation was in accord with a plea agreement with the Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, which agreed to dismissal of a misdemeanor charge of telephone harassment. Goldberg had been charged with that crime in May for allegedly making threats against employees at the Coldwell Banker real estate firm in Ketchum.
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Goldberg had admitted to an earlier probation violation in March in another plea agreement, under which the prosecuting attorney's office agreed not to pursue a felony grand theft charge against him for allegedly receiving payment twice and cashing duplicate checks for an automobile he sold to a Utah car dealership.
For his first probation violation, Goldberg was sentenced to three years additional probation and had his withheld judgment revoked in the art theft case. The withheld judgment would have allowed a felony conviction of possession of stolen property to be removed from his record on successful completion of probation. His probation in the art theft case would have ended in October had Goldberg not had later difficulties with the law.
In another development, Bonner County court records state that a DUI charge filed against Goldberg in that county last May was dismissed in August.
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
Gary Jay Goldberg
